tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48847029762992266862018-03-08T06:48:20.116-08:00Growing PaynesCrystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-9617124125196758662014-08-06T07:56:00.000-07:002015-02-26T07:51:34.693-08:00"Uhhh Uninhabitable!!!"Well, as soon as spring hit, we started discussing when we would be able to move into our house. As mentioned earlier, being the cheap people that we are, the thought of saving the $800/month for rent/, was definitely appealing. Originally we had hoped that by May long weekend we could move into our house…but that was just not going to be possible. By June, we moved into our house, though it still had no flooring, lighting, cupboards/countertops…etc, etc. We had two of our toilets hooked up the day of our move and our very kind and selfless brother-in-law was painting our doors and ceilings the same day we moved into our house. For the first two weeks we set up our tent-trailer in the garage and lived in there. I guess technically, we should not be allowed to even be living in our house yet…but quite truthfully, we couldn't really handle our rental house anymore. Plus, we never saw Jeremy as he was spending all of his time at the house. It was decided, that although our living conditions would not be ideal over at our new house, it still was probably going to be better for our family than continuing to rent where we were.<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J1udZxgx8D4/U-JA3vj1dpI/AAAAAAAAA6Q/dgr6cFROcWA/s1600/photo-1.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J1udZxgx8D4/U-JA3vj1dpI/AAAAAAAAA6Q/dgr6cFROcWA/s320/photo-1.JPG" /></a> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FdTU8L94CDU/U-JBCXOBqxI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/vIS1CFo8FgY/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FdTU8L94CDU/U-JBCXOBqxI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/vIS1CFo8FgY/s320/photo.JPG" /></a> So this is the state of our house when we moved in more or less. We were surrounded by drywall dust, tools, and the mess of being in the middle of a construction zone. One Sunday evening I went to a stake fireside for Quest that was coming up. I ran into one of the leaders from another ward that we had met last year at camp (when we had just barely started to build our house)…She asked if we had moved into our house yet…I said, yes, we just moved in this past weekend…but it isn't quite done yet…I struggled finding the words to explain where our house was at in the process…so I turned to my friend/the yw president in our ward and said "how would you describe our house"… "UHHHH, Uninhabitable!!!!" was her response. Yep, that does pretty much sum it up. Never a dull moment that is for sure. I just hope we all keep our sanity by the end of this. Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-9374512383366852142014-08-06T07:26:00.001-07:002014-08-06T07:29:28.610-07:00If you Build it they will comeWell, for over two years our family of 5 + dog lived in a one bedroom "barn house". <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cCdgzfk5bCM/U-I0SMjp6cI/AAAAAAAAA5k/3l724INM_t0/s1600/P1012607.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cCdgzfk5bCM/U-I0SMjp6cI/AAAAAAAAA5k/3l724INM_t0/s320/P1012607.JPG" /></a> This was the living room/kitchen (not even enough room for our table and so we have been using a coffee table to eat our meals for the past few years). Living in such a small space --we had to get creative…There was a mattress on the floor in the closet that Walden or Chaim would alternate sleeping on, and we divided the one bedroom with a curtain to try to make it into two. I will say it was manageable--ish…definitely by the end we were all going a little squirrally in our cramped little quarters with three wild boys that literally (at least for a while) were raised in a barn.<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aFv6fkFjPKU/U-I1pyWElUI/AAAAAAAAA5w/-6TcyUwQp1Y/s1600/P1012675.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aFv6fkFjPKU/U-I1pyWElUI/AAAAAAAAA5w/-6TcyUwQp1Y/s320/P1012675.JPG" /></a> In the midst of all this Mayhem of building and living this way, we also decided that since Walden was getting older we might as well have our fourth right away before there is too big of a gap… A difficult decision at first with the mountain of work ahead of us still with the house-- I explained and re-explained to Jeremy that if I am pregnant I will be no help to him at all. I basically become useless for 9 months when I am pregnant. I spelled out to him that I would no longer be doing the trips to the dump, or this, or that or this or that…basically, he would not be able to count on my help much at all until sometime after the baby was born. I know some women handle pregnancy much better than me, but I become a total pansy who can barely cook a meal half the time. Still, with all this laid out we decided to grow our family. By late January I was at the site going over the electrical for the boys room with our Electrician. I explained I wanted a main centre light, a light in the closet and then showed him a picture of the built-in-bunkbed wall that we were going to do. 4 built in bunk beds each with it's own reading light….sort of something like <a href="http://www.houzz.com/photos/122930/boy-bunk-room-traditional-kids-other-metro">this</a>….(The plan is to keep all the mess in one room…plus I think it will be super cool and fun) He didn't seem to get the concept and said in a sarcastic tone…"But you only have 3 kids"…. So besides family, and being barely pregnant, our electrician was one of the first to know we were expecting our fourth. At this point we were not sure if it would be a boy or girl. Knowing that a girl would eventually need her own room and may not even use the fourth bunk, we forged ahead with our plan for the boys room…(me--secretly hoping for a boy--if we build it "he" will come) And that seems to be the case as in 3 weeks (okay, I am being optimistic…5 weeks, we will welcome our 4th boy to our family)…I just hope we have a kitchen sink before baby comes:) Anyway, this is one of my favourite rooms in the house and I can't wait until it is finished. <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tmy76zB0Rhg/U-I68v7bssI/AAAAAAAAA6A/U6VSp1vEdis/s1600/photo-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tmy76zB0Rhg/U-I68v7bssI/AAAAAAAAA6A/U6VSp1vEdis/s320/photo-2.JPG" /></a>Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-22015294365068834652014-08-05T12:24:00.001-07:002014-08-05T12:24:48.264-07:00Decision, Decisions, Decisions<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fvkhp2USUjI/U-Ep-Z-bagI/AAAAAAAAA48/MvYmZYDjWBc/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fvkhp2USUjI/U-Ep-Z-bagI/AAAAAAAAA48/MvYmZYDjWBc/s320/photo.JPG" /></a> Designing/Decorating or picking all the colours and details for the home is one area where I think a lot of people have a real talent for…I not so much. Truthfully, after awhile, all the decisions seem a bit overwhelming for me. Originally our plan was to just try to copy the house of our friends that we were patterning our house from…we made some changes to make it more energy efficient (which sadly probably took away from the aesthetics of the house), but we thought if we just did what they did it would probably still end up looking alright….. here is a pic of their lovely house…it is perfect!!! <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i7ZrnORKWoM/UyAhXIljq2I/AAAAAAAAAxE/PMJgvMoDDec/s1600/IMG_1913.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i7ZrnORKWoM/UyAhXIljq2I/AAAAAAAAAxE/PMJgvMoDDec/s320/IMG_1913.JPG" /></a> However, when we ordered our soffit material we did not have a picture of their place and went by memory…(it was white right?????). We ordered and started installing our soffits and then decided to do another drive by of our favourite house…Nope not white at all (oops!!)….Yikes now what were we going to do…I panicked a little and then decided to find something that hopefully would work with the soffit material we had started with. Probably would have helped to have someone professional help pick out some of the colours and material choices but hopefully it will all come together alright in the end. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAP4dU6xQyc/U-EvYX8jDmI/AAAAAAAAA5M/UfLt4sUchgA/s1600/IMG_0619.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAP4dU6xQyc/U-EvYX8jDmI/AAAAAAAAA5M/UfLt4sUchgA/s320/IMG_0619.JPG" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qy9_GVFUUIg/U-Evb6OAIhI/AAAAAAAAA5U/cFV-GIne2SI/s1600/IMG_0616.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qy9_GVFUUIg/U-Evb6OAIhI/AAAAAAAAA5U/cFV-GIne2SI/s320/IMG_0616.JPG" /></a> Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-34454380826427063362014-08-04T08:33:00.001-07:002014-08-04T08:33:14.055-07:00Geesh, sorry about all the negativity---Some positives….We did hire a father/son team for the month of December to help us get our ceiling ready for all the insulation we were going to be putting in there. They were wonderful…a little slow,and a little pricey (we paid them and paid for their accommodations while they worked in our area) but they were thorough and totally nice and honest and I was happy when they asked us to talk to our other trade worker who was working that month about his language as they did not feel comfortable with inappropriate language while at work. I appreciated that. They were Seventh Day Adventists and were happy for the work and were happy to work over the Christmas holidays. In January the son went back to school and we were still waiting on our trades before we could seal up the walls with drywall. They were pleasant to work with and great to get to know. They also got us ready for putting in all the insulation in our ceiling. We did R70 in the ceiling which was a tonne of blow-in insulation. By late January/early February, with the ceiling insulated…we were ready to turn on at least half of our Geothermal system. As mentioned earlier we did a hybrid forced air/radiant heat Geothermal system and the radiant heating downstairs was able to be turned on. Finally we were able to get heat in our home…was it going to work?????? It did. Just having the Geothermal radiant heat in the basement on was able to keep the house at a consistent 21 degrees C. Only half our system was running and our house was staying fairly stable and comfortable…or a least more so than it had been. This put us ahead and Jeremy started to be able to plunk away on tiling the bathroom floor and starting to build some of the bathroom vanities. It was starting to feel like there was progress again. Finally by February we were ready to have our drywallers come in. It finally started to feel like progress again.Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-57086309385630513982014-08-04T08:14:00.000-07:002014-08-04T08:14:31.076-07:00A Major Project Stand Still--Working with the Trades--My Bitter RantWell, by the end of September progress on the house really slowed down. We had had a fellow doing our stucco exterior… a whole drama in and of itself. I did not want to hire him. He had a criminal record and had been in jail and his parolee was going to need to check in with us. I had heard a few stories and was not interested in having him around our site. However, D. (our contractor that helped us over the summer with the concrete pours) said that he was the cheapest we would find and he would keep him in line. Of course Jeremy did not want to consider any other options as it was clear that our Stucco job with J. would indeed be cheaper than any other crew we could hire. During August/September…things seemed to be working fine (but D. was still in and around our site a bit--which helped keep him in check)…by October working with J. became a real headache. Our agreed upon pay period of every two weeks, turned into every day, plus they would need their car filled with gas at the end of each day to get to and from the site. Each week there would be another sob storey, and he was also becoming unreliable at showing up at work or putting in a full days work. If Jeremy ran late after school they would wait outside our house for the money until he got home. This never made me feel to comfortable, but it took a real turn when I showed up at the site one day and overheard their conversation (they were working behind a tarp to keep the heat in and did not realize I was there). Anyway, it was incredibly inappropriate and disturbing and so I told Jeremy I was not comfortable at the site while they were there anymore. I also did not want them coming to our rental house anymore waiting for their daily cash. Jeremy relayed the message and reiterated our previously agreed upon 2-week pay period arrangement. However this chat had little impact and a few days later they sat outside my house for 2 hours--even after I had told them several times that Jeremy did not have cash on him today and he was in meetings and would be home late. By the time Jeremy came home I was mad. Jeremy was out there politely trying to resolve the situation, but I was already in full blown mother-bear mode. I slipped on my jacket and stormed out and gave them piece of my mind. I let them know I had heard their conversations the other day on the site and frankly it was very inappropriate and disturbing and I did not even feel comfortable going to the site or having them around my house. I let them know I had police officers in the family (okay, maybe a little dramatic) and that I don't trust people and when they behave this way red flags go up for me. I told them if it were up to me they wouldn't even have a job at our site and if they don't shape up I was more than happy to find someone else to finish the job. I also explained to them that when they do not show up for a full days labor (and I know when they are coming and leaving the site as our rental house is on the same road), and then expect to be paid for a full day that that is theft and I was tired of it….etc etc etc. After my rant I stormed back inside (locked the doors again) and let Jeremy deal with the rest. They apologized for their behaviour at the site and said they would do better. After that they put in a few more weeks of work and then they just stopped coming to the site altogether (by this time it was getting colder…but we would still get texts saying "on our way"…or "Will be there tomorrow", but they never showed up. All of their mess and supplies were still at the site so we knew they would come back sometime…but the exterior of the house would stay as is until later in the spring. The hardest part of this was when he left he had just started our South side…So all of our South glazing that was meant to help heat our home in the winter was completely not available over the winter as J. had left the scaffolding and tarps up across the whole south side of the house. As such over the winter we had no solar heat from our south windows and particularly frustrating no light…essentially we were working in a cave. It was a nice break not having to deal with all the disfunction and drama of having to babysit them, however we still had plenty of other drama to deal with. None of our other trades seemed to want to work at our site. We were now ready to get moving with our plumbing and electrical and shift our focus to the interior of the home. Our plumber who had started with us and who Jeremy had helped install the septic field with was not interested in coming to our site any time soon. I think after the septic field experience when he realized how much money we saved doing so much of the labor ourselves, he was not interested in working with us (unless desperate for work) as he could charge out and make a lot more money just doing it all himself. You see, it became clear to me that unless there is a shortage of work, the trades could really not be bothered to come to our house unless they were going to make a mint…However we planned to do work ourselves and cut costs where we could so in the end…I guess being cheap or trying to save money ended up being a hang up with the trades…(Don't get me wrong, it is not like we were ripping our trades off or trying to get a steal of a deal…they were still charging their rate…Our plumbers $85 dollars/hour rate was completely respectable and we paid all our bills on time) however he realized that on our septic field alone by having Jeremy do so much of the work we saved over $10, 000, which meant he was not making that money for him…his interest in our project quickly waned. This became a big problem with our electrical fellow to. We had worked out a rate etc. with him. It was agreed upon. However, work in the fall for our trades picked up and they were not hurting for jobs. Because we were cheaper and willing to do so much ourselves, the incentive to come to our site just was not there for them because they could make more money elsewhere. We also did all of our shopping and purchasing of materials for both the electrical and plumbing supplies…of course this saved us money but the plumber and electrician were not able to get the mark-up on materials that they charge when they supply the materials. After waiting a month and a half for our plumber we finally talked with him on the phone to try to pin down a time. The best he could tell us was maybe sometime in the new year but he wasn't sure when. We could not wait anymore--especially on such a loose commitment. We parted ways, found a new plumber, applied for another plumbing permit for our house and again, it was a hidden blessing. The new Plumber was out of lethbridge and was recommended to us by the Geothermal company we were working with. He would travel to our location…His rate was fair (perhaps even a smidge cheaper than our local guy), he was fair, decent, honest, but the best part was a great plumber that understood geothermal systems. He so far is my favourite Trade and one we recommend to anyone and everyone. Our Plumbing frustrations in the end turned out to be a real blessing as our previous plumber new nothing about Geothermal. Our Electrical guy was frustrating because he would always give us a date when he would be coming and then never show up. This went on for weeks and weeks. I would notice his truck for entire weeks at D.'s new house he was building and finally I asked our electrician why he never came to our site. He basically told me that D. is a General Contractor that gives him a lot of work and so he feels more of a commitment to make him happy than us….Again he said he would be to our place before Christmas, but it never happened. It then turned into after the new year, but again it was weeks and weeks before he showed up…and when we would get him it was usually just for an hour or two before he would leave. Sometimes he would leave his young assistant behind to do a few jobs for us, but it was definitely a SLOOOOWWW moving job. I guess that is the advantage to having a General Contractor. They deal with all the headaches of the trades…and they have more pull with the trades than we did. Our tin-smashers and HRV duct work fellows came from Lethbridge and they were great. However our walls were held up and we were unable to move on to drywall until our electrical and plumbing was tied up. In the end we had more luck with Trades from Lethbridge or out of town than we did with our local guys. And in the end I missed just being able to plunk away on it ourselves. Turning the house over to the trades brought a lot of frustration and for me bitterness whereas when it was just us working on the house we had no one else to blame or be bothered by but ourselves. I was looking forward to taking the house back and being done with our trades and doing the work ourselves again. Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-2322444695442830892014-08-03T05:28:00.001-07:002014-08-03T05:36:58.659-07:00serious catchup--Heating SystemBefore I forget (or block it out of my traumatized mind:)) I really need to continue capturing some of these details of this adventure. I have been terrible throughout this process with taking pictures and keeping a record of all that we have done and been through trying to build our own house. By fall, we were pretty much at lock up. We had the roof on, the windows in, and the doors on. Things were looking good. It was now time to coordinate plumbing and electrical and get some of those trades moving. However, we still had one big glitch looming over our heads…the heating of our home. We had been so busy over the summer in building mode--waking up, putting in long hours working on the house, going to bed and repeating the next day that we really did not have a tonne of time to do our research. As mentioned previously we were really hoping to build as energy efficient as possible…(still trying to aim for passivehaus even if we didn't quite get there on our own we wanted to apply as many of the principles as possible). I had also just recently read a great book called <a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/books/204441/the-leap-by-chris-turner">The Leap</a> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Gc35ifexrG0/U94fRxiar2I/AAAAAAAAA3s/TZDZL1QQyeA/s1600/9780307359223-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Gc35ifexrG0/U94fRxiar2I/AAAAAAAAA3s/TZDZL1QQyeA/s320/9780307359223-1.jpg" /></a> An excellent and inspiring book, that made me reluctant to even have gas as an energy source for our home. Being inspired/brainwashed, we began to look at other options. Our ideal goal was to be able to set up our house so that perhaps someday, with the help of solar panels we could be self-sustaining or off-grid. Jeremy, found a fellow in Utah that was doing solar thermal heat. He designed a system for us after a few phone calls and we discussed it with our plumber, him and us over a conference call. The gist of it was that we would have a 2000 gallon water tank in our storage room that would be heated by solar panels on the roof and thus heat our home (we had already installed the radiant in floor heating tubes. However as part of the conference call we learned (by accident on their part as the Utah designer put up a cost sheet) that the actual price of this system and the price that we were going to have to pay after it went through the hands of our Canadian supplier was going to be an $8000 increase, just for the switching hands to get this system across the border. That was a substantial markup in my eyes. Well, if there is one thing about both Jeremy and I that has motivated this project is our insistence to save a $dollar. Okay, we are super cheap…hence the reason we decided to build and do so much on our own. Needless to say the extra $8000 "handshake" cost between the american supplier and the Canadian dealer did not sit well with us. Not to mention I did not like the fact that a swimming pool (more or less) was going to take up my entire storage room…so luckily we were out and decided not to go with that system for heating our home. A HUGE blessing as it would have been a big mistake and would not have met all of our needs. In the computer modelling that we did for our house, Overheating was a concern in the summer months. We did so much south-facing glazing to try to maximize the passive solar heat gain to our home, but in the summer we were going to be running the risk of overheating. This being said, we did not want to have to rely on the traditional air-conditioning (more energy consumption) to mitigate this. It was well into the fall, and by this time our Contractor D. as mentioned earlier was annoyed with us (particularly our lack of organization over our heating system) and so he jumped out of our house and started building another. We had discussed Geothermal a few times (as it would handle our heating and cooling of the house) but never gave it too much attention due to the fact that we knew about 4 other people that had had it and did not seem to think that it worked very well. Out of desperation I was in talks with our local gas company again…"How soon could we get our gas hooked up?" He kind of scolded me on the phone because he had come out and talked to us in the summer about hookups and we sent him away confident we wouldn't be needing gas…now he felt like throwing it back in my face and said he was in no rush to get to our site (more or less) and we would just have to wait. I may have cried a little, perhaps overwhelmed, perhaps annoyed at his smugness, perhaps embarrassed that we were crawling back to the "energy enemy" and caving and hooking up our gas anyway. It was super frustrating. It also annoyed us that just to get a gas line 70 feet long to our house was going to cost us over $7000 just to bring gas to our site. Again we are cheap, but when we looked at the other gas companies in the area like Dinosaur gas who were not allowed to service us because we were under ATCOs jurisdiction the cost of the other companies was a mere fraction of what they were charging us. Literally thousands of dollars simply because we were stuck using one gas company and there was no competition…they could charge whatever they wanted. Desperate I called and talked to Energy Smart in Lethbridge. We had been talking to TeraAlta in Medicine hat about other heating options as well and so both companies gave us a geothermal quote. Energy Smarts was cheaper but we were not convinced on geothermal yet--hearing so much negative reaction in our own little circle. So that weekend we piled into the van and headed to lethbridge to actually see what all this Geothermal hype was about. We walked around the Energy Smart building that had been retrofitted for Geothermal…felt the air coming out of the vents, heard the schpeel, but were still not convinced. We wanted to know what an application in the home would look and feel like, particularly what the electrical cost to run the system really looks like. Our Neighbor in Rolling Hills who had geothermal had mentioned that in the winter months he was paying almost $400 between heating and lighting his home…a huge cost he contributed to geothermals inefficient heating. Rudy at Energy Smart drove us to his brother's house who had geothermal heating. We walked through, hung out in the mechanical room looking at the system and then he even showed us his electrical bill…$150/month for heating and lighting his home. That seemed reasonable, particularly if you could offset some of that with solar panels. It was with great pleasure that I went into our local gas company and canceled our application for natural gas to our property…we were doing Geothermal. I was so anxious and nervous about this decision, especially because Jeremy had decided that he wanted to lay the pipes ourselves to save even more money on the geothermal system. This did not sit well with me. I wanted the pros to do it all so that if it didn't work, they would be responsible. I didn't want to take any chances especially since we had already heard so many people that were unhappy with their geothermal systems. Jeremy was not convinced and so by early November him and I were stretching out hundreds of feet of geothermal pipes across our property and into the neighbouring snow-covered field while the boys sat in the van watching a movie on the laptop. We found a local excavator that came and helped us dig the trench for our horizontal geothermal lines and we spent a wet, snowy and very cold weekend digging up our entire back yard and mucking around in a enormous trench that curled around our property placing the lines. The trench was 10 feet deep and the sides had to be scooped a certain way so it would not cave in on us and so it seemed even deeper. <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c4lWMpsBvGg/U94ppp00qNI/AAAAAAAAA38/gkRnw_CvJg8/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c4lWMpsBvGg/U94ppp00qNI/AAAAAAAAA38/gkRnw_CvJg8/s320/photo+1.JPG" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-syTJmLhIQxc/U94ptAh0AkI/AAAAAAAAA4E/j59QeMXC9Ho/s1600/photo+2+copy.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-syTJmLhIQxc/U94ptAh0AkI/AAAAAAAAA4E/j59QeMXC9Ho/s320/photo+2+copy.JPG" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LuVtFRN8a3M/U94pwQjOP-I/AAAAAAAAA4M/5Gbm2OW7Vq0/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LuVtFRN8a3M/U94pwQjOP-I/AAAAAAAAA4M/5Gbm2OW7Vq0/s320/photo+3.JPG" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T3hq6lcZvs0/U94p0rPbUDI/AAAAAAAAA4U/zcIoCj_alXQ/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T3hq6lcZvs0/U94p0rPbUDI/AAAAAAAAA4U/zcIoCj_alXQ/s320/photo+4.JPG" /></a> Again, being too cheap for even babysitters I guess, our boys were in the van with the laptop watching a movie while we embarked on this latest project of insanity. At one point I decided I needed out of the trench to go and check on the boys…but soon discovered it was too deep and I was unable to get out on my own…It was strange (I had been caving before and wasn't claustrophobic or scared) but suddenly (perhaps just cold, wet and overwhelmed by this project), I started to panic and even cry a little…I told Jeremy that I needed out of the trench and the excavator lowered his bucket for me…which I climbed into and he lifted me out of the hole. Yikes…this was crazy!!!!! The boys were happy in the van, but I was a ball of nerves. Our whole backyard was dug up with a dirt pile in the centre as high as our house. All this mess and craziness and was this even going to work???? I was not convinced at this point. Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-88745727224646066532014-03-12T18:03:00.000-07:002014-03-12T23:30:43.762-07:00Up and up we go...So, our next floor of ICF was ready to go. Again this was a busy time, hence I have very few pictures. At first it seemed as though we were moving faster than before, and I thought we had really figured out a great system. Soon, we had many more window and door bucks that did slow us down a little. We were moving along so quickly at first that we had 4 feet in what seemed like no time at all. With blue skies we were eager to keep going and try to get as much ICF laid as possible. The rule is however that once you have 4 feet of ICF laid, you need to start bracing the walls. With such a beautiful day and great progress being made we completely overlooked this rule. Come mid afternoon, I looked at the sky to the east and saw complete blackness. A storm was rolling in and it was coming fast. Before long, our calm, clear day, was suddenly extremely windy, with lightning and rain. The wind actually blew down the 4 feet of our North wall and was working hard to undo all of our efforts on the East wall. We scrambled to get the braces up and in place in time to save the rest of our ICF walls from blowing over. Luckily, though hectic and insane, it was all saved and we managed to repair our North wall without to much effort (thanks to our overzealous use of zip ties, the wall stayed pretty much together when it fell down and only a few pieces had to be repaired. Things were moving along. <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OiGc5WcMsMo/UyECt4a9scI/AAAAAAAAA2g/Rn3XeG3bsQo/s1600/P1012568.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OiGc5WcMsMo/UyECt4a9scI/AAAAAAAAA2g/Rn3XeG3bsQo/s320/P1012568.JPG" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UZEkdH7HQ3c/UyECvxgqOmI/AAAAAAAAA2o/m5xpf9bEU20/s1600/IMG_2784.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UZEkdH7HQ3c/UyECvxgqOmI/AAAAAAAAA2o/m5xpf9bEU20/s320/IMG_2784.JPG" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MxWgX2my67o/UyECi_S5wHI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/ULBITQqjNS4/s1600/IMG_2785+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MxWgX2my67o/UyECi_S5wHI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/ULBITQqjNS4/s320/IMG_2785+(1).jpg" /></a> Around this time D. had recommended a local young fellow to help us with the ICF. Dan had done a little ICF work before and D. thought it would help us move things a long. Jeremy, was happy for the extra set of hands, and I was happy to have someone else around to help with the ICF, especially when we got above 5 feet and needed the scaffolding up again. As mentioned earlier, not being a fan of heights, looking over the edge of the top of the house while standing on the scaffolding was not my favourite feeling. He was a welcome addition to our little crew…bringing it from 2 to 3. The last concrete pour for the walls was completed just before the end of the summer. Soon Jeremy would be returning to school and the hours we were going to be able to commit to the site was going to drastically decrease. D. came on board with us for the Month of September. He and Dan were able to put on the roof system and trusses in a few days and finally our house was starting to come together. Around the same time another fellow named Joe came on board with us. His job was to help wrap the house in the EPS sheets (extra 4 inches of styrofoam) and then he was going to do the stucco. Things were still moving forward. In the summer we had spent a few days digging a trench for the electrical lines to the house, and laying the large wire so it was ready for the electrician to set up our electrical boxes and help us get electricity to the site. <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E7IgKB7Abuk/UyFKw2DDjEI/AAAAAAAAA24/ok0OaUlC5rk/s1600/P1012515.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E7IgKB7Abuk/UyFKw2DDjEI/AAAAAAAAA24/ok0OaUlC5rk/s200/P1012515.JPG" /></a> Jeremy also spent several days working with the plumber and the backhoe operator installing our septic system. The money he was able to save doing this job instead of having someone else do it was incredible and well worth his efforts. On days when heavy equipment was on site (such as the back ho) it really did not make any sense for the boys to be around so we had a "free day" on those days. That being said, it usually was a day to catch up on the very neglected chores and work that was required at home at the place we were living (or at least sleeping at). Looking back though I appreciate Jeremy's can-do attitude and his interest to do and brave any task. With his attention to detail I am confident that many of these jobs were only made better by having Jeremy so involved in each and every step of the house. It really seemed as though things began to derail a little when it was time for him to go back to work (another story for another post). At any rate, we had dug a hole and placed our cistern, Jeremy had spent a few days installing our septic field, we had electricity, the walls of our house were up, and the summer was over. Not to bad for 2 months work. We spent the evenings at the site, prepping for the basement and garage slab pours. We had hired a company to do 6 inches of 2 lb closed cell spray foam for insulation underneath the basement slab. Once the spray foam was in place we snapped the lines for our in-floor heating (radiant heating) and while the boys watched a movie, Jeremy and I spent a few evenings laying the in floor heating lines in our basement and garage. Once this was done, D. was ready to do our last and final concrete pour, our basement slab and our garage slab. At this stage, the weather was starting to turn. We needed heaters to help dry the concrete. It was a long long day for D. but he did great work and we had an actual basement floor and garage floor. Because we were doing the labor ourselves for so many of these tasks, at times this would frustrate D. as I think it held him up a little on certain tasks. It is not like there was not other jobs to complete while he waited for us to finish ours, but for a busy contractor who is used to cranking out the houses in record time, our involvement began to become a bit of a source of frustration for him at times. He often questioned and disagreed or discouraged our reasoning for certain choices…the extra 4 inches of EPS around the whole house made absolutely no sense to him (as with most people…He was not shy about saying what a stupid idea it was and he felt that we were going to run into all sorts of problems with it, one of which was going to be that it would not pass inspection. Worried, I called the inspector who came out, looked at it and had no qualms about what we were doing. But D. found other things to gripe about and generally did not seem to happy with our site anymore. One of those things was our Heating System. We were really hoping to stay completely away from gas hookups entirely. We had explored several heating options but as we were so consumed with the tasks and work each day at the site during the summer, we had not committed or completely figured out how we were actually going to heat our house…(admittedly not a minor detail to leave for the last moment). As such, while we figured some of our details out, D. started building another house in town and was off our site. Not to big of a deal as we had electrical and plumbing to tackle anyway. And of course…what to do about our heating…..Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-42866705646625298162014-03-12T17:34:00.001-07:002014-03-12T17:34:20.129-07:00Putting on the mainfloor floor<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nBrjV46I1wQ/UyD7H8wNDgI/AAAAAAAAA1g/LNPTo_ZZYRQ/s1600/P1012540.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nBrjV46I1wQ/UyD7H8wNDgI/AAAAAAAAA1g/LNPTo_ZZYRQ/s200/P1012540.JPG" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-McY8ZxUZwZA/UyD65WUdraI/AAAAAAAAA1Q/HRKyM5cGZ44/s1600/P1012544.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-McY8ZxUZwZA/UyD65WUdraI/AAAAAAAAA1Q/HRKyM5cGZ44/s200/P1012544.JPG" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iD7GNepg-zA/UyD7Gy14v-I/AAAAAAAAA1Y/g_NAyCtM45g/s1600/P1012545.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iD7GNepg-zA/UyD7Gy14v-I/AAAAAAAAA1Y/g_NAyCtM45g/s200/P1012545.JPG" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cJcTH8A1E0U/UyD8Qr3v-sI/AAAAAAAAA1w/kj6I3mc_BVw/s1600/P1012547.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cJcTH8A1E0U/UyD8Qr3v-sI/AAAAAAAAA1w/kj6I3mc_BVw/s200/P1012547.JPG" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ECqX7K-iLzc/UyD8SovADvI/AAAAAAAAA14/GypxKAPwKWI/s1600/P1012550.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ECqX7K-iLzc/UyD8SovADvI/AAAAAAAAA14/GypxKAPwKWI/s200/P1012550.JPG" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tVyETt0Lse0/UyD71MdKBMI/AAAAAAAAA1o/uAl8V1cc8q8/s1600/P1012553.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tVyETt0Lse0/UyD71MdKBMI/AAAAAAAAA1o/uAl8V1cc8q8/s200/P1012553.JPG" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cLPY7xZ06CQ/UyD8jIi3giI/AAAAAAAAA2A/KjNi9ebJylY/s1600/P1012554.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cLPY7xZ06CQ/UyD8jIi3giI/AAAAAAAAA2A/KjNi9ebJylY/s200/P1012554.JPG" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mCd_pZU7l_s/UyD81JuQ7YI/AAAAAAAAA2I/-TqGukw4G60/s1600/P1012564.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mCd_pZU7l_s/UyD81JuQ7YI/AAAAAAAAA2I/-TqGukw4G60/s200/P1012564.JPG" /></a> Now that we had the foundation poured we spent a few days putting the ledger board around the entire inside of the top of the Basement walls so that we would be able to install the floor for the next level. Like most things, this took Jeremy and I quite some time. Jeremy did the hard job up on a ladder screwing through concrete etc. My job was to line up the boards and notch out the outline for the sill plates…(I think that is what they were called). D. again had agreed to give us a day to put the floor on. When he arrived to install the floor trusses and floor system, we still had a few ledger boards to complete. His method was much quicker and effective…simply smash the ledger board against the sill plate and it eventually makes a dent in the board that fits perfectly. Looking back we could have been our own "Survivor Cagayan: Brains vs. Beauty vs. Braun team". D. definitely was the braun, Jeremy the Brains, and being the only lady on the crew, I guess I get to default as the Beauty. At any rate, things always moved much swifter when D. was on site. True to his word…the floor system, with much of the framing for the basement as the walls in the basement helped support the floor system, was all completed in a day. Now that the floor was in place, Jeremy and I could continue going up with the ICF… Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-81348399684467138392014-03-12T10:00:00.000-07:002014-03-12T11:06:04.514-07:00I will forever WEEP when I remember our Weeping tile and our Blueskin...<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fgmNLKjn1gg/UyCPBkTrOLI/AAAAAAAAA04/IMnstztAnnQ/s1600/P1012434.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fgmNLKjn1gg/UyCPBkTrOLI/AAAAAAAAA04/IMnstztAnnQ/s200/P1012434.JPG" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eVPU1mJOvcw/UyCO20Dmb_I/AAAAAAAAA0w/Q3YI6S4w630/s1600/P1012435.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eVPU1mJOvcw/UyCO20Dmb_I/AAAAAAAAA0w/Q3YI6S4w630/s200/P1012435.jpg" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aQ7sYjPP_VU/UyCPkWOUe1I/AAAAAAAAA1A/HmLbpjKG1Qk/s1600/th.jpeg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aQ7sYjPP_VU/UyCPkWOUe1I/AAAAAAAAA1A/HmLbpjKG1Qk/s200/th.jpeg" /></a> The weeping tile is the black coil…I never actually took any pictures of this process…Hopefully it will one day all be blotted from my memory. It was a minorly frustrating task that turned into a major frustration for me. You lay weeping tile around the foundation of your entire house to help with drainage. It comes in one complete coil and if you don't roll it out right it can be a real mess…Luckily Jeremy devised a system and though a struggle, we got the weeping tile rolled out and laid along the trench next to our foundation. We went a step further and wrapped the entire length of our weeping tile in landscaping cloth to make sure even less dirt and rocks could get in and plug it up. All of this took time…a lot of time…and these little tasks never seemed as satisfying as they seemed so menial and progress seemed so slow. finally it was laid and in place. However, after the concrete pour, sections of the landscaping cloth had to be cut off and replaced as the concrete splatter had gotten on it, which would have inhibited better drainage. Then washed rock needed to be piled on top of the weeping tile, sloping to the foundation to aid in drainage. We used a bobcat to do much of the rock placement, still having to be careful to get the blueskin in place and held down by the rocks. Having to hand bomb wheel-barrows full of rock in other sections. Once we finally finished this task we ended up having to redo most of it… Our whole passivhaus plan required that we achieve ridiculously high R values in the floor, walls and ceiling. To do this we had investigated a few options, and had planned to do a 2x4 interior wall inside of the ICF wall to add extra insulation. After talking to an ICF passivehaus designer in ireland on the phone, he convinced us that we should just wrap the entire home in an extra 4 inches of styrofoam sheets and that would get us our R-values, without worrying about the interior 2x4 insulated wall around the entire house. So, after having the blueskin, rock and weeping tile all in place, we had to now squeeze 4 extra inches of styrofoam (EPS) sheets down to the foundation inside of the blueskin…this took a ton of extra time and hassle, meant replacing the weeping tile, rock and blueskin, and it is an understatement when I say that it was seriously a happy day when that job was finally finished. I think for the rest of my days (though typically simple jobs…these tasks were made much more complicated by our last minute changes in design and plans), I will forever despise blueskin and weeping tile. Probably my least favourite tasks so far on the house. So frustrating. At times I felt the statement of "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again", ring true as we did and redid these simple little jobs to get it just right. Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-67906576952775820002014-03-12T09:36:00.000-07:002014-03-12T09:38:12.551-07:00FUN at the SITE We worked hard, the boys played hard and we always came home at the end of the day tired and very FILTHY!!!! Our beds often were filled with dirt in the morning, it seemed in those weeks that we could never free ourselves of the endless dirt and mess of the site…it followed us everywhere. Another MIRACLE from that summer was that we had NO visits to the hospital for any of us…and even though we were working long days on a construction site, and the boys were running amuck on the site while we were busy working, each morning and evening we prayed for protection and safety and I feel so blessed that our prayers were answered. (Also grateful our neighbours never called family services because 3 young boys were running around a construction site all summer long)…Also grateful that the weather was so great all summer long. I don't think we missed one day of work due to weather. Little miracles happened throughout the summer. <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HOSHO4c9TZQ/UyCIY0GFSHI/AAAAAAAAAzE/1pYgcNv9XZM/s1600/P1012426.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HOSHO4c9TZQ/UyCIY0GFSHI/AAAAAAAAAzE/1pYgcNv9XZM/s200/P1012426.JPG" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WL8GWVSikYM/UyCJA6PibpI/AAAAAAAAAzM/O0paIyR_Qp4/s1600/P1012427.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WL8GWVSikYM/UyCJA6PibpI/AAAAAAAAAzM/O0paIyR_Qp4/s200/P1012427.JPG" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QbPCSW4XtT8/UyCJJb-pihI/AAAAAAAAAzU/IgHDRZL-Wtk/s1600/P1012445.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QbPCSW4XtT8/UyCJJb-pihI/AAAAAAAAAzU/IgHDRZL-Wtk/s200/P1012445.JPG" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yuju5fTlVzw/UyCJMZ9UylI/AAAAAAAAAzc/nbOfoyEQ85g/s1600/P1012447.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yuju5fTlVzw/UyCJMZ9UylI/AAAAAAAAAzc/nbOfoyEQ85g/s200/P1012447.JPG" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8m5UrM2fNzA/UyCKm-0XEUI/AAAAAAAAAzw/69L-8Lph3o4/s1600/P1012437.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8m5UrM2fNzA/UyCKm-0XEUI/AAAAAAAAAzw/69L-8Lph3o4/s200/P1012437.JPG" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uViOId_TJic/UyCKoSLxIHI/AAAAAAAAAz4/oixoPhpBsGk/s1600/P1012481.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uViOId_TJic/UyCKoSLxIHI/AAAAAAAAAz4/oixoPhpBsGk/s200/P1012481.JPG" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xn5076PaAnQ/UyCKe_g4alI/AAAAAAAAAzo/7sDinhcWdk8/s1600/P1012486.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xn5076PaAnQ/UyCKe_g4alI/AAAAAAAAAzo/7sDinhcWdk8/s200/P1012486.JPG" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sIlgg0sZ5Yg/UyCK8ZGHviI/AAAAAAAAA0A/soyqrAgIouQ/s1600/P1012501.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sIlgg0sZ5Yg/UyCK8ZGHviI/AAAAAAAAA0A/soyqrAgIouQ/s200/P1012501.jpg" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJLxsinSfyg/UyCL5J3dKkI/AAAAAAAAA0M/LhjWg0B9ZTc/s1600/P1012513.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJLxsinSfyg/UyCL5J3dKkI/AAAAAAAAA0M/LhjWg0B9ZTc/s200/P1012513.JPG" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y-MUOimjXJg/UyCMGSlUajI/AAAAAAAAA0U/pwHAhbSLp8I/s1600/P1012467.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y-MUOimjXJg/UyCMGSlUajI/AAAAAAAAA0U/pwHAhbSLp8I/s200/P1012467.JPG" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M9QJn8r3aDY/UyCMQbEXegI/AAAAAAAAA0c/rcXtaIU1_W4/s1600/P1012469.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M9QJn8r3aDY/UyCMQbEXegI/AAAAAAAAA0c/rcXtaIU1_W4/s200/P1012469.JPG" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IGzL2_9S4Uo/UyCMlQ9TkeI/AAAAAAAAA0k/xXGHbZM-TSo/s1600/P1012472.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IGzL2_9S4Uo/UyCMlQ9TkeI/AAAAAAAAA0k/xXGHbZM-TSo/s200/P1012472.JPG" /></a>Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-24927605753294466932014-03-12T08:51:00.001-07:002014-03-12T08:51:31.369-07:00THE BIG CEMENT POUR DAYSo, the moment of truth…Our first big pour day for our walls. After being thoroughly traumatized by our footings cement pour, D. agreed to come and help us out for our foundation walls pour. All we needed to do was have all the walls properly braced and they would come and help us out for the day. When pouring ICF walls you have to brace it really well or you could have a blow-out, which would be a huge disaster and pain. Well, no matter how much bracing we had done, we still worried it wasn't enough and so just hours before the cement trucks and the pumper truck was to arrive we were still scrambling to brace. I loved it on days when Dave and his crew were on site. They worked so quickly and efficiently that I really was just in the way, so I went from being crew member to spectator/watermelon/water girl. Definitely happy not to be working with concrete and letting the guys handle it that day. Nevertheless, each concrete pour was stressful and crazy and mayhem, no matter how prepared we thought we were for it…you just have to move so fast as your doing it. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Aiz6y9u16TA/UyCAvT9s3YI/AAAAAAAAAys/XQyXXMkooYI/s1600/P1012236.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Aiz6y9u16TA/UyCAvT9s3YI/AAAAAAAAAys/XQyXXMkooYI/s320/P1012236.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vzJN5npc02E/UyCAxvcGbCI/AAAAAAAAAy0/Bb3762r9qLk/s1600/P1012258.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vzJN5npc02E/UyCAxvcGbCI/AAAAAAAAAy0/Bb3762r9qLk/s320/P1012258.JPG" /></a></div> (Happy not to be on the wall) In the end it all worked out, though there were times they had to hustle. That is just the way it goes with the concrete pours… After it was all said and done, Jeremy and I had done our foundation from start to finish in about 3 weeks time. Curious, I asked D. how long it would take him and his crew to do the foundation…his answer…3 days!!!…yikes…I consoled myself by remembering that we did not have to pay anywhere close to $70, 000 for our foundation. So all of our sweat equity, though painfully slow, would be worth it in the end. Yes, we may have been slow, but the thing I liked about us doing the work is we did not cut any corners. I had seen how D. could slap the ICF together in no time flat, but we actually felt good about doing it with a little more precision and perfection. Maybe it doesn't matter in the end, but I liked not seeing big gaps in the ICF and feeling like it was tight and secure. In the end, no blowouts and we had our basement walls.Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-42767274808239152502014-03-12T08:22:00.001-07:002014-03-12T23:49:02.532-07:00LEGO LAND Well, the day our ICF was dropped off was an adventure in and of itself. I was away at Young Woman's camp for three days and knew Jeremy would want to be at the site every day possible as we were racing against the clock to get as much done in the summer before he had to return to work--I hired a babysitter to watch the boys while I was at YW camp. Already feeling a bit guilty and torn about leaving when we had just barely started our big house-building scramble and knowing that I was the only member of Jeremy's "crew" so he would be on his own at the site, I had my doubts about what was the "right" thing to do….go to camp, or support my family. It seemed a huge sacrifice at the time for our family, but even though it was a stake camp, I wanted to support the YW president and the girls and get to know them a little better. And so the morning of YW camp, they picked me up at the site (trying to squeeze in a few hours of work before camp) and away I went. I thought about my family all day long at camp. I knew that the ICF was going to be delivered that day and that Jeremy had already arranged to take the babysitter home around 7:00 pm so that he could get in as much building at the site as possible. So, I anxiously waited until 9:30 pm to try calling him that evening and checking in on how everything went that day. At first I couldn't get through to him at home so I tried calling his cell…after the second attempt the phone picked up but all I could hear was a tonne of wind and a flurry of business, but no voice on the other end. I was so confused. At this time, Jeremy should not be at the site still…the babysitter should be gone and the boys should all be snug in bed. I started to worry a bit. I hung up the phone and tried calling the house again…no answer…I tried Jeremy's cell a few more times. Finally he answered and in a panicked voice he said "I can't talk now, there are tornado warnings here right now and the ICF is all blowing away and getting banged up…I am out here trying to get it all tied down."….Ahhh, tornado warnings…where are the boys? Our rental house does not have a basement so the ICF was not my top concern when I heard "Tornado warning"…Jeremy said the boys were at home (just 2 minutes down the road). He had had Walden waiting in the car as he scurried around the site, but Walden was crying so much he ran him home and woke up Chaim (6 years old at the time) to have him watch Walden while dad went back to the site. I walked back to the camp fire not just worried but starting to feel a little panicked. When the other leaders asked how things were at home I nervously told them that my 6 year old was babysitting during a tornado warning while Jeremy tried to save our building supplies. I am sure both Jeremy and I were saying many prayers that night, and in the end, the boys all survived and so did our ICF…It was on site, Jeremy had managed to save it from being too banged up…The babysitter had survived a long day in a one-bedroom house with three wild boys and the boys had survived being babysat by their 6 year old brother during a tornado warning…and I had survived a near nervous break-down at YW camp (I would like to think I held it together pretty good). By the time Camp was over, we were ready to start building. ICF is like big blocks of styrofoam lego. We staged the bundles of ICF where we were going to need them and began laying block. Jeremy would cut the blocks and lay them and I would help lay them, pound them down and tie them together with zip ties. Jeremy, would then come behind me and tighten the zip ties with a pair of pliers to ensure they were nice and snug. Little by little the exterior walls of our home started going up and we were the ones doing it, while the boys ran amuck on the site. So, while we were busy doing that: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u5hTuNRphc8/UyB5d7tIgvI/AAAAAAAAAxw/TVgLRnO_Y9E/s1600/P1012191.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u5hTuNRphc8/UyB5d7tIgvI/AAAAAAAAAxw/TVgLRnO_Y9E/s320/P1012191.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t3gmn3G6KcI/UyB5gCno-sI/AAAAAAAAAx4/4Sj-Ko_3mIM/s1600/P1012195.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t3gmn3G6KcI/UyB5gCno-sI/AAAAAAAAAx4/4Sj-Ko_3mIM/s320/P1012195.jpg" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FODs2RXIWiY/UyB62u-HvAI/AAAAAAAAAyE/kbmUOGYU2uE/s1600/P1012198.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FODs2RXIWiY/UyB62u-HvAI/AAAAAAAAAyE/kbmUOGYU2uE/s320/P1012198.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A-guj1Lt7Ps/UyB7QuDXHYI/AAAAAAAAAyU/s0QSI9H8UJ8/s1600/P1012207.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A-guj1Lt7Ps/UyB7QuDXHYI/AAAAAAAAAyU/s0QSI9H8UJ8/s320/P1012207.JPG" /></a> The boys were busy doing this: </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Tlv0Ol32qyo/UyB7JPcaUnI/AAAAAAAAAyM/BDPFBtjhhxw/s1600/P1012206.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Tlv0Ol32qyo/UyB7JPcaUnI/AAAAAAAAAyM/BDPFBtjhhxw/s320/P1012206.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NdUTrb-kLW0/UyB7lCDdZII/AAAAAAAAAyc/Na0wWfFSobY/s1600/P1012210.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NdUTrb-kLW0/UyB7lCDdZII/AAAAAAAAAyc/Na0wWfFSobY/s320/P1012210.JPG" /></a></div> P.S., the picture with Jeremy on the scaffolding shows our window bucks. The house actually has a lot of windows on the south side (all part of passive solar heating)…I was impressed and grateful that Jeremy was able to build and figure out all the dimensions for the doorways and window openings. It was a lot of extra work for him to build the window bucks and know where they were supposed to go. I definitely would not be able to do that!Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-83198323911705013702014-03-12T07:37:00.002-07:002014-03-12T11:10:23.345-07:00Feeling a sense of urgency yet? Well, we went from renting our lovely new home at the "sanctuary" for $800/month, to now, while building--renting a one bedroom, home for $800 plus about $200/month to fill our cistern with water. Yes, our little family of 3 boys, a new labradoodle named Kit'n and Jeremy and I (6 warm bodies in total) have been living in a 1 bedroom barn-house while we build. It was the best option for us cost wise and he have made it work…separating a portion of the room with a curtain to make a "boys room", and putting a crib mattress on the floor in the closet, which at first Chaim would use but now Walden uses. This house is also for sale and so several times throughout the build I have wondered if in fact we would be homeless. Turns out not too many people are interested in living in a one-bedroom home (lucky for us I suppose). You would think that with our cramped living quarters and less than ideal arrangement we would be in a little bit more of a hurry to get the house built…I sometimes imagine where we would be right now had I not dug in my heals so much and wasted the year fighting over the blueprints. That being said, we learned valuable lessons in that year as we researched passivhaus and houses, overcame some communications challenges, and found a way to compromise and work together... which helped us be a little more ready for building. In the end I don't think I really regret anything, it was all learning and growing. They say that building a house can be very stressful on a marriage…I don't think when they are saying that most people are their own generals or their own builders most time…this being said, despite all the stresses and craziness we have experienced so far in building, picking the blueprints so far has been the hardest thing we have been through yet. Once we decided and started building we just began to work…and work and work…and each day could see a little bit more progress than the last. however I will say now that we not only are itching to get out of this one bedroom home, but now at times we are going down-right squirrelly in it. We all are in need of a little more space--to say the least. Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-67423297415958861862014-03-12T03:04:00.000-07:002014-03-12T17:41:02.545-07:00The day I thought I was going to DIE!! Well, most contractors, when we mentioned to them our plans of doing a lot of the building ourselves, just kind of laughed at us and didn't take us to seriously…and all of them pretty much refused to work with us if we were wanting that sort of arrangement…all that is, but one fellow. I will call him D. D. was in the process of finishing building a house for a family, and he said he would pop in now and then or when we needed him to give us some tips and pointers and to help us with our concrete pours. For the summer we were on our own save it for a few days here and there when we needed him, but otherwise, he was happy to lend us his forms for the footings and be a bit of a sounding board for us. so…like a hero, he showed up at our site and dropped of his forms so we could lay our footings. He even helped us and was a speed demon with laying them all out. leaving us to finish the rest, I suddenly started getting overwhelmed by the task we were embarking on. "How firm a foundation", and the "wise man built his house upon a rock", and many other lessons on how important a firm, sound foundation is for the rest of the house, played over and over in our minds. Wow, if we mess this up…the rest of our whole house could be a big mess. Ultimately, with the "bottom-line" ever looming over our heads, we had no other choice. We finished setting up the forms and were finally ready for our very first concrete pour. It just so happened to be one of the hottest days so far, around 28-29 degrees C. We called in the help of a young man from our ward…and so our crew consisted of Jeremy, myself, and a young man named Levi. I don't think anything could have prepared me for that day. It was beyond brutal. Probably one of the hardest working days of my life, and truthfully, I don't even know how Levi managed, he was a powerhouse. Well, with us being rookies and all, we had no idea that the concrete could be wetter and it would pour and spread better…Instead, we were having to really work it to get the top of the footings nice and smooth…and we were having to move fast so it didn't dry up on us. When we were almost 2/3 done, we realized we needed help. A quick panicked call to D. who was busy working on his other house, and they (a crew of 3 more) were at our site in 15 minutes. True angels. We were moments away from loosing a whole concrete truck of concrete…it was about to set up and turn to rock right inside the barrel. Those guys moved… It was also discovered at this point that we had not placed our rebar in our footings along the way as we were supposed to, so C. (one of the guys on the crew) to the rescue, started cutting lengths of rebar and pounding them into our quickly setting concrete. After the mayhem died down D. went to get mad at the concrete driver for letting it get so dry in there and not doing something about it sooner (they should know to)…but our concrete driver was actually a bit of a rookie as well…oops. (I think my dad would have called that "the blind leading the blind") In the end, though a near complete catastrophe…it all worked out…a complete answer to prayers and definitely a miracle. During all of this, our Chaim, Oscar and Walden were onsite, with stern warning to remain sequestered to the tent trailer we had set up. It was chaos…But thankfully we all survived…at points I thought I was going to pass out due to physical exertion and extreme heat exhaustion. Jeremy, remained calm and led our misfit crew like a champ, encouraging us along until help arrived... and in the end we got it done, however traumatic it seemed at the time, I will forever be grateful to D. and his crew for coming and saving us when we were just minutes away from major disaster. In the end, the footings were poured…One step closer to having a house.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q6GOwO-ed1g/UyAw-1jxMQI/AAAAAAAAAxQ/qtPQX0C2bNk/s1600/P1012180.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q6GOwO-ed1g/UyAw-1jxMQI/AAAAAAAAAxQ/qtPQX0C2bNk/s320/P1012180.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-05OfQm8e4PM/UyAxDtrF70I/AAAAAAAAAxY/oeT23GZjNHU/s1600/P1012181.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-05OfQm8e4PM/UyAxDtrF70I/AAAAAAAAAxY/oeT23GZjNHU/s320/P1012181.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fuVwjbC-deU/UyAxHvha09I/AAAAAAAAAxg/_2hzIA1PIx4/s1600/P1012183.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fuVwjbC-deU/UyAxHvha09I/AAAAAAAAAxg/_2hzIA1PIx4/s320/P1012183.JPG" /></a></div> (Memory: I just remembered how we were not quite done tying the rebar in the footing forms that morning before the concrete trucks arrived. It felt like crazy pressure, like when you watch those Masterchef shows and the clock is ticking down…they have 10, 9, 8, 7…etc seconds to plate the food or feed an army of hungry people..6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…time!…Times up! the cement trucks are here. Put down your rebar ties. Luckily…another miracle, we finished prepping the forms and the rebar just as the first cement truck rolled in…it was truly a crazy day.)Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-59759533796306235152014-03-12T02:12:00.004-07:002014-03-12T06:41:45.513-07:00And the WInner is….Drumroll…..<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i7ZrnORKWoM/UyAhXIljq2I/AAAAAAAAAxA/PrvPOeuNXRw/s1600/IMG_1913.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i7ZrnORKWoM/UyAhXIljq2I/AAAAAAAAAxA/PrvPOeuNXRw/s320/IMG_1913.JPG" /></a> I'd like to think that ultimately I was the peacemaker (albeit a very reluctant one)…however upon our research and as we started to explore quotes for 2 stories versus a bungalow etc, it appeared as though whichever design we chose, we would save money in some areas, and it would cost more in others. We also had a highly recommended general contractor give us a quote for each house which was astounding and completely out of budget…it sealed our fate of being our own General contractors. As we explored quotes for foundation and framing work, it also became clear that not only were we going to have to be our own General Contractors…we were going to have to be our own builders as well. Once this realization sank in, the charm of a 2-story quickly faded away (personally I have a fear of heights) so the thought of helping to build a "high" house no longer seemed that appealing. It was going to be a bungalow. Perhaps Jeremy was right all along--but I will only admit that once I see the final cost of this house…Can we really keep this house within budget…on an acreage with the extra cost of hookups, cistern and septic, whilst doing passivhaus (or as close to it as possible)…I was very skeptical but Jeremy assured me it was possible (and if anyone could do it, Jeremy could with his Mad skills). So we began finally moving in a direction. Never building a house before, we (for various reasons) decided to go with ICF, and sent away for our first quote from a reputable Foundation Contractor…the quote was $70, 000 just for the foundation. A depressing number and a good chunk of our entire housing budget…how were we going to do this. The Solution….Simple…we would build our own foundation. After all, ICF is pretty much like lego…how hard could it be. Our confidence was little inflated by the fact that a few years earlier Jeremy had helped build his dad's shop which consisted of about 4 feet of ICF…piece of cake…right??? well, we must have thought so, because once we decided to do our own foundation and basement out of ICF, it didn't take long for us to determine that if we went all the way to the trusses with ICF we could save a tonne of money on labor as we could do it all ourselves. Not to mention, this plan also would help us get some of the R-values, air-tightness, and energy efficiency we were hoping to achieve. The actual materials for the entire foundation to ceiling ICF was going to cost us less then the basement quote we had gotten from the local contractor. Already, we were saving money. Done! ICF to the trusses it was…Builders:Jeremy and Crystal. So, while jeremy finished wrapping up the last days of school, we spent our evenings out on our site, digging test pits for the soil and water levels and staking out our property lines and the perimeter of our house. Of course, being rookies, and having our 3 kids running around and playing with the stakes, this all took a little longer than I am sure it does for the pros…but it was free, and ultimately on June 29, 2013, we were on our vacant lot with a local excavator digging out the foundation and basement of our home. Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-60075378760860740662014-03-12T01:43:00.000-07:002014-03-12T03:05:31.161-07:00Building Our Own House - Part 1 So, the blog has sat dormant for quite some time. Here is a bit of a catch up as we have been super busy with our latest crazy project of building our own house. We moved out of the beloved "Sanctuary" (as the chemtd's called it) almost 2 years ago as Jeremy took a new job at a bigger school. We looked at the housing market in our new location and were so discouraged by the limited options and the much higher prices. Our first week at our new ward we were kindly taken to a newer neighbourhood in a nearby town in which several members had decided to be their own General Contractors and given a tour. Their homes were beautiful and the money they were able to save simply by being the one to call the trades in, was incredible. That was that…building seemed our only option. We quickly found and purchased a 1.2 acre lot just on the outskirts of our new town and had planned to start building right away until we ran into our first little snag…. AGREEING ON BLUEPRINTS. Jeremy and I had very different ideas of what type of house we were going to build. I had always thought that if I ever built a home, it would be exactly like my Grandma's old two-story farm house. Ask any of the children and grandchildren that spent portions of their growing years at that house and it is unanimous…that house had a special sort of magic… Though it was old, and not very large (which is debatable…it is about 850 square feet per level (3 levels) so plenty of space)…, each room, each railing, each doorknob, each nook and cranny of that house held sentimental value to us.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9a38PimPMmQ/UyAaOxEacXI/AAAAAAAAAwk/5wFAhiESb5o/s1600/IMG_2250.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9a38PimPMmQ/UyAaOxEacXI/AAAAAAAAAwk/5wFAhiESb5o/s320/IMG_2250.JPG" /></a></div> Absolutely charming and beautiful! However, Jeremy had actually fallen in love with one of the homes on our little tour. A bungalow that was 1800 + square feet. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h99p02_hlFA/UyAa2CCXBGI/AAAAAAAAAww/DteI65zo14Q/s1600/IMG_1913.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h99p02_hlFA/UyAa2CCXBGI/AAAAAAAAAww/DteI65zo14Q/s320/IMG_1913.JPG" /></a></div> Beautiful as well. However, learning quickly that it is much cheaper to build up than out, I was not to excited about a large bungalow. Jeremy, on the other hand, felt a bungalow would have better resale, fit better on our lot and make more sense for our family. Deciding on our house plans was made even more complicated by the fact that we were both determined to pursue a very energy efficient design…perhaps the most rigorous model for energy efficient design…Passivhaus Design. What ever blueprint we decided upon, it was going to have to make sense within the Passivhaus Design constraints. And each plan had pros and cons within these limitations. So, the battle began… And it truly was a battle. We could not agree at all. We drove down and walked through Grandma's house…Walked through the other house numerous times, drove by and behind it even more times like some creepy stalkers… ultimately, I decided, if we can't agree on either house, lets just find a house we both can agree upon. So for the next year I poured over hundreds of blueprints online, spent countless hours sketching and printing off "other options"…still to no avail. We were at an absolute stalemate. At this point my main requirement was cost and energy efficiency. I wanted as low of a mortgage as possible, a small square home, that checked the boxes for energy efficiency. Jeremy, with his attention to detail and attraction to quality, felt that if we were going to build a house we should do it right the first time…build a house we can enjoy for a long time, that made sense on the lot we had purchased. Well, this battle continued over the next year….and though looking back I see how absolutely stubborn we both were, we finally picked a plan and moved forward…(albeit almost a year behind our building schedule now). To be continued….Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-19604473059022710902012-03-25T23:53:00.003-07:002012-03-26T00:05:11.336-07:00If you give a Moose an Apple Tree...In the fall we had a marvelous moose visitor. It was quite exciting to look out the window in the morning and see this guy nibbling on our apple tree. The excitement faded quickly however as he began to get a little too comfortable around the house which kept the kids from playing in the yard as they normally do for a few days...so I took it upon myself to scare him off. We see him around now and then still. <br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yRYnVWqzOQw/T3AU7jC6CsI/AAAAAAAAAvI/_6a-Pr38-bA/s1600/summer%2B538.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yRYnVWqzOQw/T3AU7jC6CsI/AAAAAAAAAvI/_6a-Pr38-bA/s200/summer%2B538.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724098139640171202" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hM_DF9dZCJM/T3AU7N1x4AI/AAAAAAAAAu8/1Jh4DhhuTAg/s1600/summer%2B539.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hM_DF9dZCJM/T3AU7N1x4AI/AAAAAAAAAu8/1Jh4DhhuTAg/s200/summer%2B539.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724098133947965442" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ps4YtkD-Erw/T3AU6svZAWI/AAAAAAAAAuw/ucd2nuv1DAA/s1600/summer%2B541.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ps4YtkD-Erw/T3AU6svZAWI/AAAAAAAAAuw/ucd2nuv1DAA/s200/summer%2B541.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724098125062799714" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Il4XkO_RMw0/T3AU6fSAHoI/AAAAAAAAAuk/y4cNNSUaRAQ/s1600/summer%2B544.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Il4XkO_RMw0/T3AU6fSAHoI/AAAAAAAAAuk/y4cNNSUaRAQ/s200/summer%2B544.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724098121449873026" /></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NhisfIrn-co/T3AU500hCVI/AAAAAAAAAuY/obGeDykY8r0/s1600/summer%2B549.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NhisfIrn-co/T3AU500hCVI/AAAAAAAAAuY/obGeDykY8r0/s200/summer%2B549.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724098110051912018" /></a>Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-37371322859629815442011-11-10T03:12:00.008-08:002012-03-26T00:28:41.900-07:00Counting Down the Days.......To Summer!!! <em> (I still don't know how to do the collages so this picture post is a bit messy).</em>
<br />Last summer was the best one yet!!! We purchased a lovely old tent trailer and spent over half of our summer in it. Right now I am dreaming about those days again. Some of our highlights were Waterton, Crowsnest Pass at the Chemtd's summer cottage, Our very own guided tour at Frankslide, Becoming Junior paleontologists at Tyrell, Surveyors lake and all of the painted turtles, discovering KOA's in the USA, Torrington Gopher Museum, bears, bison, deer, camping with the paynes at Wildnerness Resort, and loads of family time. It was our first summer that we were not working, and I am ready for an encore...I am looking forward to another great summer...Any suggestions of great places to visit or check out?
<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xm3lbc4dFEw/T3AaeZ0kN-I/AAAAAAAAAvs/7E1ECqnFfYI/s1600/iphone%2B233.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xm3lbc4dFEw/T3AaeZ0kN-I/AAAAAAAAAvs/7E1ECqnFfYI/s200/iphone%2B233.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724104236017661922" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lgeXmzrnFNQ/T3Aad6feJqI/AAAAAAAAAvg/e_b-Wo-O7_c/s1600/iphone%2B232.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lgeXmzrnFNQ/T3Aad6feJqI/AAAAAAAAAvg/e_b-Wo-O7_c/s200/iphone%2B232.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724104227607684770" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F5XT33u3-XQ/T3Aac6pHxPI/AAAAAAAAAvU/ipCfdQj87iM/s1600/iphone%2B378.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F5XT33u3-XQ/T3Aac6pHxPI/AAAAAAAAAvU/ipCfdQj87iM/s200/iphone%2B378.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724104210468291826" /></a>
<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iYzQF2NXINw/T3AOk8rI79I/AAAAAAAAAuI/kpw17rBSIIE/s1600/1stcampingtrip%2B057.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iYzQF2NXINw/T3AOk8rI79I/AAAAAAAAAuI/kpw17rBSIIE/s200/1stcampingtrip%2B057.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724091154313048018" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-saFlzMY1zew/T3AOkv66BrI/AAAAAAAAAuA/pliRh4sNB0g/s1600/1stcampingtrip%2B079.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-saFlzMY1zew/T3AOkv66BrI/AAAAAAAAAuA/pliRh4sNB0g/s200/1stcampingtrip%2B079.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724091150889518770" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n_uWsdX7qNc/T3ANn4dFkvI/AAAAAAAAAtw/sgh8TcDXieQ/s1600/summer%2B018.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n_uWsdX7qNc/T3ANn4dFkvI/AAAAAAAAAtw/sgh8TcDXieQ/s200/summer%2B018.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724090105208345330" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eE61iRHUDH8/T3ANnggp1kI/AAAAAAAAAtk/IV6nycVZa0o/s1600/summer%2B043.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eE61iRHUDH8/T3ANnggp1kI/AAAAAAAAAtk/IV6nycVZa0o/s200/summer%2B043.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724090098780853826" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UsNqRY9IbZA/T3ANnGzEFMI/AAAAAAAAAtY/2yc-43xZUFc/s1600/summer%2B060.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UsNqRY9IbZA/T3ANnGzEFMI/AAAAAAAAAtY/2yc-43xZUFc/s200/summer%2B060.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724090091878749378" /></a>
<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5JSZQMTD0bw/T3ANm3h1iEI/AAAAAAAAAtM/tqttX3F7yHE/s1600/summer%2B061.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5JSZQMTD0bw/T3ANm3h1iEI/AAAAAAAAAtM/tqttX3F7yHE/s200/summer%2B061.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724090087779960898" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UAHLb9OLgv4/T3ANmk9lXbI/AAAAAAAAAtE/_1khAPX3Ze4/s1600/summer%2B067.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UAHLb9OLgv4/T3ANmk9lXbI/AAAAAAAAAtE/_1khAPX3Ze4/s200/summer%2B067.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724090082796068274" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w3d86izkvdA/T3ALZlyKEJI/AAAAAAAAAs4/fDfLZ3ftf0g/s1600/summer%2B078.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w3d86izkvdA/T3ALZlyKEJI/AAAAAAAAAs4/fDfLZ3ftf0g/s200/summer%2B078.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724087660655022226" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aynUgdkZS54/T3ALZPmDK4I/AAAAAAAAAss/uUTUH-xfMDw/s1600/summer%2B090.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aynUgdkZS54/T3ALZPmDK4I/AAAAAAAAAss/uUTUH-xfMDw/s200/summer%2B090.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724087654698658690" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zxb7Ny9WTtY/T3ALYuK8iRI/AAAAAAAAAsg/fkrD7-_JCkw/s1600/summer%2B119.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zxb7Ny9WTtY/T3ALYuK8iRI/AAAAAAAAAsg/fkrD7-_JCkw/s200/summer%2B119.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724087645726607634" /></a>
<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u-KFadwQxVE/T3ALYUe9ziI/AAAAAAAAAsU/Pm7iiGS8RcM/s1600/summer%2B164.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u-KFadwQxVE/T3ALYUe9ziI/AAAAAAAAAsU/Pm7iiGS8RcM/s200/summer%2B164.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724087638831255074" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-retio9rLDbs/T3ALX3oLT3I/AAAAAAAAAsI/jS8DsTGGxeY/s1600/summer%2B244.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-retio9rLDbs/T3ALX3oLT3I/AAAAAAAAAsI/jS8DsTGGxeY/s200/summer%2B244.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724087631085260658" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0crgIsFD2L0/T3AJUiFn9zI/AAAAAAAAAr8/ZTrkFdR45nc/s1600/summer%2B322.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0crgIsFD2L0/T3AJUiFn9zI/AAAAAAAAAr8/ZTrkFdR45nc/s200/summer%2B322.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724085374740330290" /></a><alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724085366188730146" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jh8gcqz3qFI/T3AJT85L7gI/AAAAAAAAArk/jXCMElTcuvU/s1600/summer%2B373.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jh8gcqz3qFI/T3AJT85L7gI/AAAAAAAAArk/jXCMElTcuvU/s200/summer%2B373.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724085364756049410" /></a>
<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BfbjxeHMGbU/T3AJTOLMFXI/AAAAAAAAArY/51RM-SWAbWM/s1600/summer%2B400.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BfbjxeHMGbU/T3AJTOLMFXI/AAAAAAAAArY/51RM-SWAbWM/s200/summer%2B400.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724085352215090546" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KJFYtg8iHwc/T3AJSu1JgbI/AAAAAAAAArM/5bKSm7L2jGA/s1600/summer%2B426.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KJFYtg8iHwc/T3AJSu1JgbI/AAAAAAAAArM/5bKSm7L2jGA/s200/summer%2B426.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724085343801147826" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tp8typ3thMk/TruzB1RNXQI/AAAAAAAAAqs/R3zbMm83Pbw/s1600/summer%2B429.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tp8typ3thMk/TruzB1RNXQI/AAAAAAAAAqs/R3zbMm83Pbw/s200/summer%2B429.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673324999663770882" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oaCQ16S2WAA/Truyq53YGmI/AAAAAAAAAqg/djxKOI5YO-M/s1600/summer%2B437.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oaCQ16S2WAA/Truyq53YGmI/AAAAAAAAAqg/djxKOI5YO-M/s200/summer%2B437.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673324605760608866" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RSMwmyBUmm0/TruyXMf-CwI/AAAAAAAAAqU/K2rvi89x90k/s1600/summer%2B464.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RSMwmyBUmm0/TruyXMf-CwI/AAAAAAAAAqU/K2rvi89x90k/s200/summer%2B464.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673324267165321986" /></a>
<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--3i7bzPBDvU/TruyAeSdRwI/AAAAAAAAAqI/ilE0KTB3iJo/s1600/summer%2B477.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--3i7bzPBDvU/TruyAeSdRwI/AAAAAAAAAqI/ilE0KTB3iJo/s200/summer%2B477.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673323876803495682" /></a>
<br />With the chemtd's recent return to blogging as well as the realization that my boys love looking at all the pictures on the blog...I have decided to catch up on some of our missed moments around here. Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-46711245162806233902011-11-10T02:59:00.000-08:002011-11-10T03:12:27.207-08:00My Big Boy<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oejGl6tp9vw/TruwIsUd6UI/AAAAAAAAAp8/o9itOrBRTSA/s1600/summer%2B560.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oejGl6tp9vw/TruwIsUd6UI/AAAAAAAAAp8/o9itOrBRTSA/s200/summer%2B560.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673321818985720130" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KYfg9Taqby0/TruvXEGGbCI/AAAAAAAAApw/i9-hNa7qIzQ/s1600/summer%2B507.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KYfg9Taqby0/TruvXEGGbCI/AAAAAAAAApw/i9-hNa7qIzQ/s200/summer%2B507.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673320966374452258" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-psMQ0BChPtA/TruvEBbmtPI/AAAAAAAAApk/6t9egdguoPY/s1600/summer%2B511.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-psMQ0BChPtA/TruvEBbmtPI/AAAAAAAAApk/6t9egdguoPY/s200/summer%2B511.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673320639241827570" /></a>Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-25410579482676000882011-07-07T06:00:00.000-07:002011-07-07T06:09:00.857-07:00Alberta Birds of PreyAlberta Birds of Prey Foundation. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SeT3c5-fx-s/ThWuogpOtPI/AAAAAAAAApI/oBr3tlgTu4Y/s1600/canada%2Bday%2B129.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SeT3c5-fx-s/ThWuogpOtPI/AAAAAAAAApI/oBr3tlgTu4Y/s320/canada%2Bday%2B129.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626595320450168050" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_yjhUYPccSo/ThWvNLQM4mI/AAAAAAAAApQ/qtmF3E1Mt1Y/s1600/canada%2Bday%2B134.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_yjhUYPccSo/ThWvNLQM4mI/AAAAAAAAApQ/qtmF3E1Mt1Y/s320/canada%2Bday%2B134.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626595950363206242" /></a>Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-63593589282745310242011-07-03T06:01:00.000-07:002011-07-07T05:59:57.375-07:00Schools Out for Summer!, O Canada, and You Might be a Red Neck if...Well, School is out...Yahoo...We kicked it off with a visit from the Kjambd Hardy's. It was a great time and the boys can't wait til we do it again...We are looking forward to lots of family fun this summer. Lady was a delight as always and the kids loved meeting her.<br />On Friday we headed into the town where we go for church to take in the Canada Day parade. Chaim and Oscar loved all the candy they got.<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZC0Kx3sn8Y8/ThWsQiL53aI/AAAAAAAAApA/DBEmndTfWYA/s1600/canada%2Bday%2B048.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZC0Kx3sn8Y8/ThWsQiL53aI/AAAAAAAAApA/DBEmndTfWYA/s320/canada%2Bday%2B048.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626592709523922338" /></a>After the parade we had a little picnic and then got our tickets for the Demolition Derby. Yup, that is how they celebrate Canada Day here...A 6 hour long Demolition Derby. Definitely a first experience for me...I wasn't sure how I was going to like it (I mean, the first (and only) Hockey game I went to a few fights broke out on the ice and people went mad shouting "fight, fight, fight"...it was a little traumatic for me)...The thought of people purposely ramming their cars into other peoples cars likewise seems a little insane...but I guess I am adapting quite well to these parts as it was quite enjoyable.<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eInIhnR6B6o/ThWqCKbuvpI/AAAAAAAAAoo/7p5Ms0wpQvM/s1600/canada%2Bday%2B065.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eInIhnR6B6o/ThWqCKbuvpI/AAAAAAAAAoo/7p5Ms0wpQvM/s320/canada%2Bday%2B065.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626590263606427282" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o-yEXmVLNjk/ThWrbZ6_e3I/AAAAAAAAAo4/dhYOqY1FQuw/s1600/canada%2Bday%2B103.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o-yEXmVLNjk/ThWrbZ6_e3I/AAAAAAAAAo4/dhYOqY1FQuw/s320/canada%2Bday%2B103.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626591796772436850" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c3uTAQWwRVM/ThWrIYS0agI/AAAAAAAAAow/2SbQm_CuzPc/s1600/canada%2Bday%2B093.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c3uTAQWwRVM/ThWrIYS0agI/AAAAAAAAAow/2SbQm_CuzPc/s320/canada%2Bday%2B093.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626591469917989378" /></a>Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-22899540492873978962011-06-16T17:48:00.000-07:002011-06-16T18:23:55.697-07:00DadI enjoyed reading <a href="http://johnandtanis2.blogspot.com/2011/06/all-about-my-dad.html">Tan’s post </a>on Dad the other night. It made me also sad to realize that with Jewel no longer blogging we will not have the wonderful musical montage of Dad she does each year that I watch over and over again.(luckily I can still go back through your archives)--I found one you had made years previous and watched it at 2:30 am four times over…I was a puffy-faced, heavy headed mess after and rolled back into bed with a heavy heart just aching to be able to talk to him again—a most common feeling—with each success or sadness, feeling of uncertainty, happiness, overwhelmedness, loneliness, pride, excitement, insecurity, relief, embarrassment or joy (pretty much any emotion) I want to call him up to share it with him and I am always surprised and sad when I realize I no longer can. I often find myself holding onto the phone, having called my siblings but still feeling a void wondering who to call next only to realize that the only person I most really want to talk to is dad… He was my very best friend. I miss him for me soo much but the hardest part is missing him for my kids. As I watch my three little boys grow up, I can’t help but feel such strong regret and sadness for not having them know him the way I wish they could…to hear them call him Grandpa and see their faces light up as he showers them with his attention and love for them. He was the best Dad ever and yet an even better Grandpa. He lived and breathed for his grandkids and was the epitome of the ridiculously doting grandpa.<br /><div><embed src="http://www.onetruemedia.com/share_view_player?p=4cea7e8a810689064cf701" quality="high" scale="noscale" width="408" height="382" wmode="transparent" name="FLVPlayer" salign="LT" flashvars="&p=4cea7e8a810689064cf701&skin_id=701&host=http://www.onetruemedia.com" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed><div style="margin:0px;font:12px/13px verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;padding-bottom:15px;width:408px;text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.onetruemedia.com/landing?&utm_source=emplay&utm_medium=txt1" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none;">Make an on-line slide show at <span style="text-decoration:underline;">www.OneTrueMedia.com</span></a></div></div><br /><em><blockquote><blockquote>(Thank you Jewel for letting me steal this video from your blog...And especially thank you for being our family photographer...You have captured so many wonderful pictures and memories of all of our families. Thank you for helping to preserve these memories)</blockquote></blockquote></em>Yesterday the boys were buzzing around me while I was working on something in the sewing room. Oscar pulled out an old family photo that was on top of a pile of pictures I had in a box…”Who’s him, who's him mom?”, Oscar said holding up the picture and pointing to dad. Although we have a picture of Dad on our piano in our family room and we have talked about him and looked at the picture a number of times for FHE, it hurt a little that Oscar didn’t know him…in a new photo, in new clothes he couldn't’t recognize him as well. I told him that that was my dad, his grandpa, and explained that he hasn’t met him yet because my dad died a long time ago when Chaim was just a baby…Chaim then asked…”When will he come alive again?” (Chaim seems to think that since Jesus was resurrected three days after He died, our loved ones will be resurrected in a likewise timely fashion…as though it is just a matter of days)...”Not for a long time” I said. As best as I could I tried to explain it to my two young boys. It made me wonder how my dad did it all those years ago. How he made it make sense to us when we were so young and mom died…I can never remember not knowing that we would see her again, and my dad always managed to keep her memory so fresh in our minds. Now as a parent I am realizing that I need to do the same for my children and I now have such gratitude that my dad did it for me as I realize the efforts it takes. I hope I can do the same for them. I want them to know what amazing grandparents they have and I know that even though they have passed they can still be such a powerful influence in their young lives just as my mom was in mine. I am so thankful for eternal families and for the blessings of the temple. I know that families are forever and this truth is the most pure and beautiful knowledge I have. I am so grateful for the peace and comfort and joy that the gospel is in my life and how it teaches and helps me with my <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J-_f4oRuWI">eternal family</a>.Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-32517129002817606302011-06-09T02:38:00.000-07:002011-06-09T03:20:47.102-07:00Rose-Coloured GlassesAs awesome as it is to watch these little ones grow up right in front of our eyes...
<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QLEcGvxpixI/TfCWErK4wMI/AAAAAAAAAoQ/yrScLEFNat8/s1600/Owls%2B130.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QLEcGvxpixI/TfCWErK4wMI/AAAAAAAAAoQ/yrScLEFNat8/s320/Owls%2B130.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5616153742383038658" /></a>
<br />Or to get to have an adorable little cow like this as a pet...
<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hEqLEbtTNEc/TfCVTwgmSPI/AAAAAAAAAoI/F_SaLYtPFfk/s1600/cow%2B025.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hEqLEbtTNEc/TfCVTwgmSPI/AAAAAAAAAoI/F_SaLYtPFfk/s320/cow%2B025.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5616152902002690290" /></a
<br />Perhaps I am guilty of painting too perfect of a picture...I became aware of this while talking on the phone to Tan and mentioning my little mouse problem.
<br />*We have been having a little mouse problem within our vehicular device (van). It is awful and disgusting and I have no idea how they are getting in or how to get rid of them. Last night we caught mouse #2 (how many more are there???)...Lets just say the mouse poops I found yesterday were little baby ones...
<br />*The other day it rained and rained...Our country roads were a monster mud bog...Taking Chaim to school was a slip and slide and I white knuckled it the whole way...Jeremy brought him home at the end of the day and the car was covered in mud...litterally the only window that you could see in or out of was the windshield the rest was iced in thick country mud...(I have to admit, on that particular day I thought about how lovely paved city roads are)...We can wash our cars and 2 days later they need it again.
<br />* Having a pet cow is really great and all...but I am discovering it is a little like those "give a pig a pancake" books...If you give a Crystal and cow, she is going to ask for a...and litteraly, it goes on and on.
<br />Tongiht I woke up and raced to the side door to check our cow...she is doing fine, but now I am wide awake. Lady has been sleeping under our front porch at night (I have been nervous about the Coyotes getting her)...I know that this habbit is not natural cow behavior and that it could become problematic in the future as she gets bigger. So tonight I kicked her out...she had a tough time with it at first (our cow thinks she is a dog), straining to get back to the house...It is time to fix up our fences and move her away from the home. Also, now that we have a calf I am wishing we had a dog or a donkey, or a llamma (a childhood dream of mine),anything to keep the coyotes away. And so it goes...If you give a Crystal a Cow, she is going to ask for a (Mini Jersey Milk Cow...totally awesome and she could keep lady company and we would never have to buy milk again)! If you get another cow, she is going to fix the fence, if you fix the fence she will ask for a llama, if you get a llama she is going to need a dog, if you get a dog she will need a cat...and on and on it goes. I am getting tired just thinking about it all. Anyways, good night. Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-58173895825391315512011-06-05T20:06:00.000-07:002011-06-05T20:30:50.963-07:00City SlickersThis weekend we took a quick trip to the City. It was a spur of the moment fast last minute decision. I have been thinking that what our family needs on this beautiful acreage is a pet. So after a bit of research I found two lovely dogs that were "trained" and up for adoption. One was in Cow Town and the other was in Red Deer. So we raced into the city after Jeremy was done work to meet dog #1. It was a beautiful dog, however our introduction didn't go so smoothly as I yanked my kids away from it within seconds of meeting it...I guess the way it greets people is by growling and barking...I am sure we could have warmed up to it but the growling made me a little too nervous. <br />We had the pleasure of staying at CHEMTD's overnight. Heather as always did not disappoint with her AMAZING culinary skills. Lets just say I have never had Nachos like that ever...BUT her HOMEMADE FRESH SALSA was the best part of all of it. In the morning she made an incredible Peach French Toast upside down thing, eggs and sausage...WOWWY, we were sure spoiled.(Unfortuneately I am the only sibling that does not have my camera with me at all times so I have no pictures of these delicious dishes to show off). Nonetheless, THANK YOU CHEMTDs...and thanks for all of your help Chad with cameras and work stuff. <br />After breakfast we decided to whip up to Red Deer to see Dog #2. She was a delight and we spent much more time with her, we even took her for a little walk...Unfortuneately, Chaim and Oscar were more interested in the Cats, Bunny, and Ferret that lived there than the dog. So, we are not sure if we are ready for a dog yet...Still deciding if we really are dog people.<br />While we decide though we did end up getting a pet for a while...A lovely orphaned Calf the boys have named Lady. She is a doll.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-73220JCSqZo/TexH3ZnTzpI/AAAAAAAAAn4/qY0rn-HdBCI/s1600/June%2B004.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-73220JCSqZo/TexH3ZnTzpI/AAAAAAAAAn4/qY0rn-HdBCI/s320/June%2B004.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614941852518305426" /></a><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jUZ9RGD37SQ/TexHfUfS6SI/AAAAAAAAAnw/Sa6RPMMjvF8/s1600/June%2B005.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jUZ9RGD37SQ/TexHfUfS6SI/AAAAAAAAAnw/Sa6RPMMjvF8/s320/June%2B005.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614941438825654562" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UyF7GUT9Tws/TexIzXvgFzI/AAAAAAAAAoA/l-S4QVjPf0s/s1600/June%2B013.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UyF7GUT9Tws/TexIzXvgFzI/AAAAAAAAAoA/l-S4QVjPf0s/s320/June%2B013.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614942882807945010" /></a><br />We will be bottle-feeding her at least three times a day for a while. I just got back from a walk with her. Just call me billy-Crystal.Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4884702976299226686.post-32254695470633847912011-05-31T22:36:00.000-07:002011-06-01T07:55:05.690-07:00Just a Small Town GirlCan I just say that I love love small towns. It is absolutely beautiful in the country in the springtime here. Jeremy mowed the lawn tonight as the owls looked on, birds and chorus frogs chirping all around. Our own little piece of heaven. We both feel pretty lucky to live in this magical place right now.<br /><br />Yesterday we drove to a nearby town for a meeting. Afterwards for FHE we decided to check out another enchanting ity bity town/hamlet on the way home. We had heard rave reviews on their municipal park...and Oscar has been eager to break in his Biderman pishingrod. It was the perfect evening. <br />Oscar couldn't resist the water and kept trying to wade into it. By the end both boys were wet. We took off their wet clothes before they got in the van and on the way out of the park realized that the ice cream parlar was still open...How could we resist?...We did have to improvise though but it was well worth it.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ou4h91Vs7GU/TeXWTWWfELI/AAAAAAAAAmc/E7U5v-UuNZw/s1600/Enchant%2B023.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ou4h91Vs7GU/TeXWTWWfELI/AAAAAAAAAmc/E7U5v-UuNZw/s320/Enchant%2B023.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613128138492940466" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k66xD-pCtyU/TeXWm2nk-QI/AAAAAAAAAmk/BrDfgE7KYGQ/s1600/Enchant%2B040.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k66xD-pCtyU/TeXWm2nk-QI/AAAAAAAAAmk/BrDfgE7KYGQ/s320/Enchant%2B040.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613128473572079874" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BWz8xfpZBWE/TeXZuh6JKzI/AAAAAAAAAnk/aOemKFHOPYc/s1600/Enchant%2B009.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BWz8xfpZBWE/TeXZuh6JKzI/AAAAAAAAAnk/aOemKFHOPYc/s320/Enchant%2B009.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613131903986641714" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OgUeM-6PMUQ/TeXZiUnHU5I/AAAAAAAAAnc/bMlqtC2Q1ck/s1600/Enchant%2B034.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OgUeM-6PMUQ/TeXZiUnHU5I/AAAAAAAAAnc/bMlqtC2Q1ck/s320/Enchant%2B034.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613131694258738066" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a-C0G_ISo70/TeXZV8tTJBI/AAAAAAAAAnU/aUyGyQGYQNQ/s1600/Enchant%2B047.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a-C0G_ISo70/TeXZV8tTJBI/AAAAAAAAAnU/aUyGyQGYQNQ/s200/Enchant%2B047.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613131481683797010" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-i3B2XUC1ZOk/TeXYfFzIi9I/AAAAAAAAAnE/Z_iaUh1hlKQ/s1600/Enchant%2B060.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-i3B2XUC1ZOk/TeXYfFzIi9I/AAAAAAAAAnE/Z_iaUh1hlKQ/s200/Enchant%2B060.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613130539231382482" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OySazVEuojs/TeXX1HEcyvI/AAAAAAAAAm8/35QpC8G5IUg/s1600/Enchant%2B062.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OySazVEuojs/TeXX1HEcyvI/AAAAAAAAAm8/35QpC8G5IUg/s320/Enchant%2B062.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613129818017942258" /></a><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Izp7UKrN5cg/TeXXhaAldQI/AAAAAAAAAm0/kZLIRpbLl2k/s1600/Enchant%2B064.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Izp7UKrN5cg/TeXXhaAldQI/AAAAAAAAAm0/kZLIRpbLl2k/s320/Enchant%2B064.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613129479504622850" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zsi7zdria78/TeXXEvnB4XI/AAAAAAAAAms/ma7ym0ajyVg/s1600/Enchant%2B066.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zsi7zdria78/TeXXEvnB4XI/AAAAAAAAAms/ma7ym0ajyVg/s200/Enchant%2B066.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613128987086807410" /></a><br />P.S. How do you guys do your <a href="http://johnandtanis2.blogspot.com/2011/05/royal-canadian-mint-and-other-weekly.html">picture collagey </a>things...This is a mess!!!Crystalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08834994137530568582noreply@blogger.com3